Pod Insights Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel Can Our College Friendship Survive Adulthood? About this episode Friendship is a key thread of the social fabric. But what happens when the thread starts to fray?
They met in college and have been close for a decade. Now, with long-term partners in the mix, their once-easy bond is under strain. Resentments—some spoken, many not—have started to pile up. Can their friendship adapt to this new phase of life? Or will it unravel? Esther offers them both some hope.
Topic: Relationships with Family & Friends
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 You know, in college, we'd show up somewhere, I'd be like, "This is my wife, like, here's how we met, we're in love." And people would just assume we actually meant we were in love. And I think we kind of were, at the time. Mm-hmm. But just not in a romantic, I mean, yes, in a romantic way. Not in a sexual way. No.
0:17 Speaker 01 None of the voices in this series are ongoing patients of Esther Perel. Each episode of Where Should We Begin is a one-time counseling session. For the purposes of maintaining confidentiality, names and some identifiable characteristics have been removed. But their voices and their stories are real.
0:39 Esther Perel? In this following session, we discuss assault. And I want you to know this before you listen.
0:52 Esther Perel? The story of a friendship. Two girls from very different backgrounds become confidantes. They experience a love story together. A platonic love story, but a love story nevertheless. And they become each other's besties for four years. The entire college duration.
1:16 Speaker 03 Being able to ask for help and receive help, I think is really foundational to our relationship and our friendship and the caretaking that happens between the two of us.
1:30 Esther Perel? They're there for each other. They're like the foundation for each of them to then go into the world and do their own explorations. And so then the question becomes, how does a friendship like that evolve after college? When their life changes? When partners enter into this story? Or when they start to make choices that take them away from each other? And it becomes a friendship where the expectations doesn't match the reality anymore.
1:59 Speaker 03 It's true that we have been experiencing different realities of our friendship in the last year, and maybe a little more. But I don't want to just fill in the empty space that you have. I want you to text me and say, "Hey, I haven't seen you. My boyfriend's out tonight. I would love to watch a movie. Do you want to come over?"
2:20 Speaker 00 Right, but I haven't wanted to do that.
2:22 Esther Perel? We used to be everything for each other, and now we barely talk. Is it that other people have replaced us? That we've basically completely grown apart? Was I really that important?
2:38 Speaker 00 I didn't always feel valued or fully respected. And because I don't say things in the moment, I will start to weave, you know, I'll start to crochet a little narrative.
2:51 Esther Perel? And so are we here to mourn our relationship, to say goodbye to each other, to realize that we have accompanied each other in a most important phase of our life, one that we will never forget? Or do we have a chance to continue to be part of each other's lives? And that is a question that many of us have had to confront.
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4:39 Esther Perel? Can I suggest something?
4:41 Speaker 00 Yeah.
4:41 Esther Perel? Would it be okay? How about I meet the people before I meet the problem? Because often people come here because there's a situation.
4:53 Speaker 00 Right.
4:54 Esther Perel? Problem or not, but there's a situation they want to work through. And there's something about a problem that is constricting. You're kind of narrow around the problem. When in fact, you're much broader and bigger than that as people. And so is probably your relationship. And I would love to just meet you.
5:16 Esther Perel? Meet you, hear about your origin story. I understood, something's happened. It's not generally that complicated in friendship to think, what are the things that can go wrong? Tell me about, if I met you separately.
5:32 Speaker 00 Yeah.
5:33 Esther Perel? As is likely sometimes to happen. And I sat on the plane next to you. And then I sit on the plane next to you. Who am I meeting? Who, you know, tell me a bit.
5:46 Speaker 00 I moved to the United States when I was six. I was born in Buenos Aires.
5:52 Esther Perel? No accent?
5:53 Speaker 00 No accent, no. I was very young. I would say my brother, who is nine, has slightly more of an accent. But only if you know. My dad was a pilot for his whole career. So he was away a lot. And my mom was an architect before she had us. And then would stay home with us. Especially after we moved because my dad would be away. And like, we didn't have the whole sort of community that we had back in Buenos Aires. Yeah, I think even though it was such a like small portion of my life that I lived there. My parents are very much from there. And all my family is from there. Like, we don't have American family. Like, we're all Argentine. So I think it has played a significant like sort of cultural role.
6:33 Esther Perel? Say one more line about that.
6:37 Speaker 00 I was raised by like Argentine people. You know, like, but I am an American girl. Or like, that's how I see myself.
6:44 Esther Perel? And when you say that, I'm raised by Argentine people.
6:49 Esther Perel? And that means, or that looks like?
6:51 Speaker 00 Um, very sort of emotional, um, openly, at least in my experience of my Argentine people.
6:59 Esther Perel? Mm hmm.
6:59 Speaker 00 Um, not much beating around the bush, like, kind of just saying things directly. I think that they had a different level of sensitivity to certain issues than perhaps some American parents would have, like. My brother and I were diagnosed with anxiety much, much later in life, even though I think it was pretty prominent uh when we were kids. Not because my parents don't like believe in it. I think they just are like. I don't know. I think for a while they thought it was maybe a construction or like.
7:29 Esther Perel? Part of life.
7:30 Speaker 00 Yeah, because I look at them and my dad is one of the most anxious people I've ever met.
7:34 Esther Perel? How old are you?
7:35 Speaker 00 I'm twenty seven.
7:36 Esther Perel? Both of you?
7:37 Speaker 00 Yeah.
7:37 Esther Perel? Same age?
7:38 Speaker 00 Yeah.
7:38 Esther Perel? Mm hmm. What of this Argentinian culture?
7:44 Speaker 00 Yeah.
7:45 Esther Perel? Lives in you? Well, you say they're the Argentinians and I'm the American girl.
7:50 Speaker 00 Yeah.
7:51 Esther Perel? Is that such a flat statement or?
7:54 Speaker 00 No. I think that looking the way I look, which is white, brunette, blue eyes, you know, and my name doesn't really ring. Hispanic in any way. I think sometimes it's important for me to know that I'm not just from Connecticut because. Then I feel very like reduced to whatever someone thinks about Connecticut. Um, I speak Spanish with my family. That's my first language. And there's definitely a version of me that is Argentine. But I don't get to access her very much because I mostly spend my time here.
8:28 Esther Perel? Right, but you're also seeing different parts of me.
8:32 Speaker 00 Yes.
8:32 Esther Perel? Come to the front.
8:33 Speaker 00 Yes.
8:34 Esther Perel? In each language?
8:35 Speaker 00 Yes.
8:36 Esther Perel? And in each country.
8:37 Speaker 00 Yeah.
8:38 Esther Perel? Okay.
8:39 Speaker 00 Definitely. Um, yeah, so grew up in suburban Connecticut, went to college in Canada and met Emily there.
8:49 Esther Perel? So you both were actually kind of what they call foreign students?
8:53 Speaker 00 Yes.
8:55 Speaker 03 Yeah.
8:57 Speaker 03 I grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia. And both of my parents uh also grew up in that area. My dad and his brother and all my cousins all went to the same high school that I went to. And it was a pretty competitive and highly ranked public school. And I really poured myself into academics. In part because I liked the ideas and the knowledge and the conversations. And also because school is a comforting structure of progress and achievement and feedback.
9:42 Speaker 03 And because you were bored. I guess I was bored. You didn't like living there. I didn't like living there. I didn't like living in the suburbs. Had friends, but certainly wasn't thriving socially or I knew that high school wasn't gonna be my favorite part of life. And really wanted to flee to like go elsewhere. Yeah, um, wanted to go for college and study abroad. But my parents were like, please stay on this continent. So I went to Montreal, which was only an eight hour drive from home.
10:19 Speaker 03 But it really satisfied my craving for being an international student, being around other international students, being in a city, living independently. Are you the first one of the generations to leave? Um, yeah, both of my parents went to college, but both stayed local. I think my leaving my hometown was feeding that urge and that desire for distance and change and diversity in a way that I did not have. Growing up in very wealthy, white suburbs.
10:58 Speaker 03 And then in our freshman year dorm, on our floor, there were people from maybe seven or eight different countries. And. Or Irish, French. Yeah. Uh, Canadian, American. Exactly. And I loved it. I felt, um.
11:22 Esther Perel? Stimulated.
11:23 Speaker 03 I felt stimulated, I felt challenged and stretched without being competitive.
11:30 Esther Perel? Is it because in high school you somewhat walked around with the idea of I'm not like you. I have other aspirations, I want more.
11:42 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
11:43 Esther Perel? I want to expand, I'm curious. Whereas when you arrive to college, you watch and see all these people from all these different parts of the world and you say, my people, I am like you. You two are the seekers, you two are the travelers, you two wanted more. And therefore, there's less of a need to say I'm better, I'm different.
12:04 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
12:04 Esther Perel? You know.
12:05 Speaker 03 I want something else than all of you.
12:06 Esther Perel? Something else.
12:07 Speaker 00 Well, strangely, I wouldn't put myself in that bucket.
12:09 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
12:10 Speaker 00 I got to school and that all that freedom that like you loved and craved, I was like so terrified and overwhelmed by.
12:17 Esther Perel? Hmm.
12:18 Speaker 00 And I think that's like why.
12:20 Speaker 03 We had very different experiences in our first year. And so knew each other, technically lived on the same floor, but.
12:27 Speaker 00 Never really spoke.
12:28 Speaker 03 We became close because we both decided to live with our mutual friend. And the three of us then were going to look for an apartment. And the first time you and I ever hung out one on one was to tour apartments together. So it really wasn't until living together that we became friends and developed art.
12:44 Speaker 00 And like a little into living together.
12:46 Speaker 03 Yeah.
12:46 Speaker 00 Yeah, I remember that first month being like.
12:49 Speaker 03 Who is this girl?
12:50 Speaker 00 I was like, who is this girl? She doesn't like me and our third roommate is a nightmare and I have to move out and like, what did I do?
12:55 Speaker 03 Mm hmm, yeah.
12:57 Speaker 00 And then?
13:00 Speaker 00 The night.
13:01 Speaker 03 Oh, the night.
13:03 Speaker 00 Yeah. Emily had something happen while I was back home. I was sleeping and she was out with her friends and came home and woke me up and she was like weeping. She had gotten really triggered by something that a friend had said. And I got up out of bed, it was like probably two in the morning.
13:23 Esther Perel? And you had your first friendship interaction.
13:27 Speaker 00 Yeah.
13:27 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
13:28 Esther Perel? Right?
13:28 Speaker 00 Yeah.
13:28 Speaker 03 Yeah. It's interesting retelling this story. So the thing that happened is the summer after my first year, we had moved into our apartment. And I was walking home one night after going out with friends, it was warm. And about a block and a half from our apartment, a man had been following me and jumped me and started beating me. And I hadn't known he was following me. And I didn't know who he was and I didn't really know what was happening. And some stranger happened to be walking by and sort of shooed him off and grabbed my hand. And we ran to my apartment and called the police.
14:08 Speaker 03 And, you know, part of the story is that this man happened to call the police on himself after it happened. He is on the spectrum and had been at a strip club or something and was upset that he never got women. And so went out looking and I just happened to walk by. And so, referring to this night, I had been out at a party and something about someone leaving felt like they shouldn't be walking home alone. It triggered that like, there's danger and I can't control it feeling for me.
14:50 Speaker 03 And I came home and was really tearful and couldn't stop crying and knew I needed help. And so, woke you up. And you were like, here's what we're gonna do. You're gonna smoke some weed, we're gonna watch TV, we're gonna hang out, and then you're gonna go to bed. And having someone take care of this situation, being able to ask for help and receive that kind of help,
15:25 Speaker 03 I think is really foundational to our relationship and our friendship and the caretaking that happens between the two of us.
15:34 Esther Perel? Very beautiful. And I'm thinking also about how, just before you talked about how much you value structure.
15:45 Esther Perel? And she basically offered you structure, clarity, and calmness.
15:51 Speaker 03 Yeah.
15:51 Esther Perel? Which is probably one of the most important things to do in a moment of crisis.
15:57 Speaker 03 Yeah.
16:01 Esther Perel? I understood immediately that this was a friendship on standby and that it wasn't clear if it was going to have a second wind or if it was going to continue to wither. But I also wanted to learn about the friendship first before I would listen about the friendship crisis. And I meet two women and they could have just been roommates. But then there is, as they say, together in unison that night, the night that kind of sealed the friendship. Those of us who have met that person and who have had that experience,
16:44 Esther Perel? it's unique and it is a kind of a coup de foudre of falling in love instantly. And they have a complementarity. It's not just one taking care of the other. In fact, they each have their strengths. They each lift the other. They're the safe haven that you come home to in the evening and you go back out into the world.
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19:14 Speaker 00 I wouldn't say that the caregiving is like all in one direction. I think like part of what we would like joke about when we became friends. Cause we became like, after that night, like we were up together every night, like talking. We were having dinner together. We were watching shows together. We basically started dating. Mm-hmm. But not in a romantic, I mean, yes, in a romantic way, not in a sexual way. Like, we never like slept together and that wasn't an element of our relationship. No. But very quickly, we were like, alright, so you're like, and I think being in a different country was part of that, right? Like, you are my person, like, you're my emergency contact. You are my roommate. You are my built-in plus-one date to whatever. You are my sounding board. But like both ways.
19:59 Speaker 00 And I think like, I struggled with like some depression and feeling really lonely and isolated. And that manifested in like not going to school a lot, which I don't know if my parents know about that, but I often didn't go to school in my first year and really, really... Interesting you just got closer to the night as you... Sorry, Mom and Dad. Well, I'm addressing them. Oh, that one's for them. Um, I learned a lot at school and it wasn't all in school. Yes. And that's, that's what I'll say. Emily was someone who was structured, did her readings. I was the other, always went to class. Always went to class, like knew how to get things done. And I was like, hey, come and learn how to smoke out of this bong. And I'm gonna make you some cookies and we're gonna watch TV.
20:44 Speaker 00 And I think that at the time, that's like what we both needed. We needed someone else to help us with our. The thing we weren't so good at.
20:52 Speaker 03 Yeah.
20:54 Esther Perel? And then, when you ended college, you stayed in touch, you.
21:00 Speaker 00 Well, this is sort of where the trouble begins, because I begin to have a lot of feelings. And can't figure out how to share them. And so then I like, hold on to them. And I would say the end of college, we experienced very differently and I. Was very angry with her.
21:16 Speaker 03 And I did not know. I had made.
21:21 Esther Perel? Continues to make you cookies and to roll the bong and to.
21:25 Speaker 00 Kind of, I mean, I was also busier.
21:27 Esther Perel? I mean, it's that invisible?
21:29 Speaker 03 Well, to the same extent that we had always had different interests and different friend groups and different. Hobbies and activities. We both became more involved in our separate worlds. And so I didn't necessarily notice your distance as being about me. So much as you were busy with your own things and I was busy with my own things.
21:51 Speaker 00 Okay.
21:52 Speaker 03 And so, we graduated, we moved out. Uh, you know, we left Montreal, which was heartbreaking for me at least.
22:01 Speaker 00 I was happy to leave. I also think I should mention, and I, I, I don't actually think that this was so crucial. But Emily did have a boyfriend that final year, which we had not had before either of us.
22:13 Speaker 03 That would, that hadn't been part of the dynamic.
22:15 Speaker 00 Yeah.
22:16 Speaker 03 Yeah.
22:16 Speaker 00 So I think a lot of the like, quiet, like chilling of like, smoking or watching TV or whatever, you were now doing.
22:24 Speaker 03 With other people, yeah, yeah. So I ended up moving to Chicago and I moved at the same time as a gaggle. Of Olivia's best friends from high school also moved. And so. I'd met some of these people through you and they quickly became my community in Chicago. And you look from afar in New York, where it's really expensive and. You don't have a lot of friends or community and you're saying, wait, all my friends are hanging out without me. So you come. And move to Chicago and move in with me.
23:01 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
23:02 Speaker 03 So that's my. I guess two year arc.
23:06 Esther Perel? And you move in together in Chicago and you.
23:08 Speaker 00 With a third roommate.
23:09 Speaker 03 With a third roommate.
23:10 Esther Perel? But the main idea is you reestablish your domestic life.
23:13 Speaker 03 Yes. Mm hmm. And at this point, I have a new boyfriend.
23:17 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
23:17 Speaker 03 And you arrive.
23:20 Speaker 00 Like my boyfriend and I broke up in the car.
23:23 Speaker 03 On our way.
23:23 Speaker 00 Outside of Chicago. So I was like fresh.
23:26 Speaker 03 Fresh.
23:27 Speaker 00 Fresh.
23:27 Speaker 03 Off a breakup. Yeah.
23:29 Esther Perel? It's interesting, right? This friendship, I mean, this is probably true for for many, right? It's the two of us, the three of us, the four of us, us with the gang, me with your gang, me looking at you with my gang.
23:44 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah.
23:45 Esther Perel? And the number of different constellations here, and every time it changes the dynamic.
23:51 Speaker 00 Oh, and it keeps.
23:53 Speaker 03 That keeps happening.
23:54 Esther Perel? You're gonna tell me, okay, more years.
23:57 Speaker 00 Well, so those two years I I sort of saw a little bit differently. I graduated college and I was really mad at you. The most like salient of which. I started to feel the inklings of something that I think I I still feel to this day and is probably the main thing I want to talk to you about because it's the thing I've never been able to talk to you about. I didn't always feel like valued or like fully respected. And and again, because I don't say things in the moment, I will start to take like little pieces and I like start to weave, you know, start to crochet a little narrative for myself with all these different like small events, little thing you said,
24:42 Speaker 00 other tiny thing you didn't do or, you know, whatever.
24:45 Speaker 03 Beading.
24:46 Speaker 00 Yeah.
24:46 Speaker 03 Taking all the beads.
24:47 Speaker 00 Right. So at the end of college, you graduate the day before me and leave with your family. And that night I had a big party at our apartment with a bunch of our friends. We stayed up super late, got super drunk, and the next day I was like very hungover and. Had to move out of this apartment and she was already gone. And when my parents got there and I was like throwing up, they were like, okay, I guess we have to do all of this. And as they like started doing it, I was like, oh, there's actually so much to be done like. It was two years of an apartment that then like my hungover ass and like my parents had to like clean up. And that felt very frustrating. That felt like I was not valued, right? Like we didn't do that together. We didn't like plan ahead of time, but.
25:31 Speaker 00 It was graduation, so whatever. We then go on a trip to Argentina.
25:36 Speaker 03 Together.
25:37 Speaker 00 Together. And at the time I was feeling mad. And frustrated that the first time I was like bringing someone to this place that is so personal to me, I was like not. Excited to do so at the time. We end up going on like honestly, a really cool trip that we both. Remember fondly and then from my recollection, we didn't really talk after that trip.
25:58 Speaker 03 You had your New York era. I had my Chicago era. You were dating this guy.
26:03 Speaker 00 Yeah.
26:04 Speaker 03 Who.
26:04 Speaker 00 Sucked.
26:05 Speaker 03 Well.
26:06 Esther Perel? It sums it up.
26:08 Speaker 00 Yeah, I mean.
26:08 Speaker 03 Existed in this completely separate world from me.
26:12 Esther Perel? But I just wanna go back to something because.
26:16 Esther Perel? There is tracking the events and then there is tracking the relationship.
26:23 Esther Perel? And they don't seem to necessarily always coincide for both of you. What happened to the feelings?
26:30 Esther Perel? They're just a cure. They they may have just that, you know, numb themselves.
26:35 Speaker 03 Yes.
26:35 Esther Perel? Because of the distance.
26:36 Speaker 00 I mean, I can tell you what happened to the feelings.
26:38 Esther Perel? Yeah.
26:38 Speaker 00 I had worked myself up so much and I basically decided that I could either.
26:46 Speaker 00 Confront her and tell her about all of these feelings. Or I could let it go. Those were the only options. I couldn't stay as upset as I was and also not say anything. In my head, I was like so many of these problems came from like us living together and like sort of taking each other for granted. It's like, I don't foresee that happening again, so I'm just going to let them go. And I really thought that I had let them go. Until I started feeling similar things when we started living together again. And I would say it was good for like a little while.
27:15 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
27:18 Esther Perel? I can't stop noticing the attention to details, layer upon layer, shift upon shift. Every detail matters. It's a very careful tending to the relationship, to the closeness, the distance, the coming toward, the moving away from, the sharing, the keeping to oneself, the expressing the feelings, the trying to distance oneself from one's own feelings. Because how to be close to you if I feel all of this? So I either stay with my feelings and I separate from you, or I stay close to you and I separate from my feelings.
28:08 Speaker 03 I think there was a little bit of contextual distance in that you were fresh off of a breakup and I was fresh into a new relationship. And so we were both aware that that's different than it had been in the past.
28:21 Speaker 00 Well, and I was like, Emily has obligations and priorities.
28:27 Esther Perel? If she has another partner.
28:29 Speaker 00 Right, exactly. But at the time, I was like, it's fine, Emily's got another partner. I'm single, I can do whatever. I started dating everyone with a pulse. And it felt fine. And I think the rub started to come when I pulled away from my expectations of you because you had obligations with someone else. But I think sometimes I felt like you still had those expectations of me and that didn't feel fair. Because just because I didn't have my own partner to prioritize, I was like, I'm not going to prioritize you if you are prioritizing someone else. That doesn't feel fair. And so I was pouring all my time and energy.
29:10 Esther Perel? So now we enter into the triangle dynamic.
29:14 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah.
29:15 Esther Perel? So we need to define friendship, is one of the things. What is friendship? That isn't, we live together, we are partners, we each have our own lives, but we anchor each other in the way that you described so beautifully before. And so now you are four, now the two partners, right?
29:36 Speaker 00 And I would say you don't really know my partner and I don't super know your partner. I know him more because he's been around longer. But...
29:46 Speaker 00 Yeah, I don't know, maybe it was a fantasy.
29:48 Esther Perel? And you never meet alone again.
29:50 Speaker 00 Who, us?
29:51 Esther Perel? Yes, do you, I mean, never, it's a form of speech.
29:54 Speaker 00 Well.
29:55 Esther Perel? But you tend to not meet the two of you.
29:57 Speaker 00 I would say.
29:57 Esther Perel? You meet primarily with with others.
29:59 Speaker 00 I would say that's the case.
30:00 Esther Perel? You're part of the same circle, but you don't have that little loop around the two of you anymore.
30:05 Speaker 00 I would say so.
30:07 Speaker 03 Well, I think it wasn't until we moved to Chicago that you were like, so I've secretly been very angry at you for the last two years.
30:13 Speaker 00 Right.
30:14 Speaker 03 And I said, news to me.
30:15 Speaker 00 Right, right, right, that's that's fair to say. Um, yes, I felt I felt mad and I felt like in the time that we had lived together, there had been a time where we were each other's partners and everything was shared, good or bad. And then suddenly there was this other person that you would share all the good stuff with. And because you hadn't been dating that long, you weren't sharing all the bad stuff. And so you would bring that to me. And I felt taken advantage of because I was like, I don't get her in a good mood. I don't get her excited to go out. I don't get her like wanting to do something. I get her like after work.
31:01 Speaker 00 Whenever you're in a bad mood and like don't want to see your boyfriend, like that's what I would get.
31:06 Esther Perel? Meaning the leftovers?
31:07 Speaker 00 Right, right.
31:10 Speaker 03 I think my memory of the feelings that you brought up were you saying, I've been harboring so much anger and resentment towards you and now I have to talk about it. And feeling a little like, thanks for telling me now. But also, I can't really do anything about those last few years. And it has planted this seed of worry that you are secretly harboring a lot of anger and resentment towards me and not naming it, which has persisted.
31:52 Speaker 00 Well, but then I would ask you something, which is that.
31:56 Speaker 00 You know that I need, hey, are you okay? You seem weird. What's up? Things aren't, you know, just as an opening, right? Like, I struggle to just like, hey, I um have something that I wanted to. You know, like, and, and, and so then I start to get frustrated when I'm like, clearly you know that I might be harboring resentments, and so why wouldn't you just ask me?
32:21 Esther Perel? For that very reason.
32:22 Speaker 00 Well, yeah. But if, but if you ask like, hey, are you mad at me? I would have just been like, yeah, actually, this thing made me mad. Mm-hmm. Versus then like, a year and a half goes by, and I'm like, Emily must know that I'm upset, and the things just keep stacking, and she doesn't say anything to me.
32:42 Esther Perel? So they talk about resentment, they talk about anger. There's a lot of feelings here mixed in. Jealousy, and there is the, you broke up with me. And there is the, I'm upset with you, and it's hard for me to tell you, you should notice that, and you should be the one to help me, say what I have to say by reaching out to me. And now it becomes, if you would help me, if you were different, then I could do what I want to do. And so slowly, um, we identified our stalemate.
33:21 Esther Perel? We are in the midst of our session. There is still so much to talk about. We need to take a brief break, so stay with us.
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35:05 Speaker 03 Well, there are two places that we could go. One, I think, is we deal with conflict and emotions very differently, in part due to each of our families.
35:18 Speaker 00 Definitely.
35:19 Speaker 03 Where if you were acting some type of way, your dad would bust into your room and yell at you to tell him what's going on.
35:28 Speaker 00 Yes.
35:29 Speaker 03 Whereas my family gives space, backup, no intrusion.
35:35 Speaker 00 If she needs something, she'll let us know.
35:37 Speaker 03 Exactly. But we're also still sort of hovering around the 2022 conflict. And part of the prompt of us being here is the distance that's persisted over the last year or so. And I'll add that it's not that I knew you were mad about something and wasn't coming to ask you what's wrong. It's more that I was experiencing when we would hang out, you would mostly talk about yourself.
36:08 Speaker 00 That's so funny because I felt exactly the same about you.
36:11 Speaker 03 No.
36:12 Speaker 00 Yes.
36:13 Esther Perel? I'm just watching and thinking, you've just entered into an inner circle. We're getting closer.
36:21 Speaker 00 Yeah.
36:22 Esther Perel? You took your time, you told the story. And and now we're in the present.
36:27 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
36:28 Speaker 00 Yeah.
36:28 Esther Perel? And I just watched you and I just thought myself, okay, now it's starting.
36:33 Speaker 03 Mm hmm. We've arrived.
36:34 Speaker 00 Sorry it took so long.
36:35 Esther Perel? No, no.
36:37 Speaker 03 You needed the, you needed to meet the people.
36:39 Speaker 00 Yeah.
36:39 Speaker 03 And now we've arrived at the conflict.
36:41 Esther Perel? And I think you needed it too.
36:43 Speaker 00 Yeah.
36:43 Esther Perel? Because an hour is shorter than two years.
36:47 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
36:49 Speaker 00 You know, when a romantic relationship doesn't serve you anymore, you get rid of it because for most people you can only have one. But a friendship, like, you don't need, first of all, you don't need any, and second of all, you can have as many as you want. And so, you know, I think some some friendship sort of skeptics might be like, well, so why are you guys still friends? Or like, why are you trying to be friends? And it's like, in telling you the story, like, I'm getting emotional, like, thinking about, like, everything we've been through and like,
37:14 Speaker 03 I've just never had um friendship the way I did with Emily and it makes me so sad that my boyfriend and like, probably the love of my life, like, doesn't know that and doesn't know you and doesn't know us um as friends, really. He doesn't. Now that we've arrived, I'm very curious to know what your question was to Esther for the podcast. Like, what, what, what did you write in?
37:46 Speaker 00 I wrote that I felt like we had very different experiences and realities about our friendship, that we experienced it very differently and that there was a huge gap and I didn't know how to bridge the gap.
38:03 Speaker 03 I really appreciate that question prompt.
38:10 Speaker 03 It's true that we have been experiencing different realities of our friendship in the last year and maybe a little more. But we're very clear on our origin story.
38:22 Speaker 03 In part because we've told this story to a lot of people.
38:25 Speaker 00 Well, because we used, I'd be like, this is my wife, you know, in college, we'd show up somewhere, I'd be like, this is my wife, like, here's how we met, we're in love. And people would just assume we actually meant we were in love. And I think we kind of were at the time.
38:36 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
38:37 Speaker 00 But just not
38:38 Speaker 03 Yeah.
38:39 Speaker 00 A sort of.
38:40 Speaker 03 But I think that pointing to our really different experiences of the current reality of our friendship. Something that really caught me when you reached out to tell me that you had written into this podcast was you saying, I've been really emotional about this for a long time. And thinking about it and journaling about it and talking to my boyfriend and my therapist and our friends about it.
39:12 Speaker 00 Mostly my parents. I tried not to talk to our friends about it.
39:14 Speaker 03 Okay, but your people. And I think this is sort of getting to the current triangulation, which is you, me, and everyone else. I felt so protective of our primary partnership with each other because I hadn't had a long-term committed relationship before you, because you were the most meaningful relationship in my life. And I really resented the idea of anyone finding a partner and then it
39:55 Speaker 03 taking precedent over this really rich partnership that we had built. And felt very defensive of the fact that relationships can be multiple and overlapping and you don't have to get everything from one relationship, etc. But it feels like you have been talking to everyone else about what you are feeling and how you you are perceiving this before talking to me.
40:26 Speaker 03 And to find out that you had been angry and frustrated, but really charged and emotional about it and telling our friends, that felt like more of the betrayal.
40:40 Speaker 00 Yeah, I mean, and obviously, it's like something that I know that I do and and I'm trying better. I guess I just felt so, um.
40:52 Speaker 00 Our partnership felt dissolved, to be honest.
40:54 Esther Perel? See, you emphasize loss, and you emphasize betrayal. I didn't matter to you anymore. You had replaced me. Here came the boyfriend. I was no longer your priority. And there's grief and there's loss. You know, somebody once said, every person's autobiography is another person's betrayal.
41:21 Esther Perel? You talk about me, but when you talk about me, that means you talk about
41:27 Esther Perel? things that I may not have chosen to say. And you basically bring everybody else into your orbit in a way that makes me feel like, how do you say, I'm grist for the mill?
41:42 Speaker 00 It makes me feel
41:46 Speaker 00 not so much replaced, but more like left out.
41:49 Esther Perel? But you land in the same spot. She feels left out, you feel left out. The trajectory that brings you there is different. But you land up in "I'm not important enough for you to come to me." And she basically has her version of "I'm not important enough for you to come to me." On different things. And this is the transition. How do we go from partner to friend when we have no partners?
42:18 Speaker 00 Well,
42:21 Speaker 00 I think that...
42:24 Esther Perel? And when you respond, if you allow me, you understand it, but then you were just about to justify it. "But I did it because..." It's okay, you don't need to justify it. You did it.
42:38 Speaker 00 I did it, yeah.
42:39 Esther Perel? You both have good reasons for what you do, but it's not the good reasons that are gonna bring you closer. What's gonna help you get closer is to understand the effect that your good reasons have on the other person. And then, how much you care about it. Because, you know, the thing about friendship is it's all free given. It's not something you can impose.
43:03 Speaker 00 Well, to be honest, I think at times I felt imposed upon. And that's kind of the crux of like where my distance became really intentional. I started to feel like you would ask these things of me that were like partner level asks, big asks. And again, like not because friendship needs to be a hundred percent perfectly reciprocal. But like if we haven't talked in a while, we haven't hung out in a while and you ask me a big favor.
43:32 Speaker 00 And I'm terrible. I don't know how to say no, right? Like I will always say yes. And then I'll feel resentful afterwards for doing it and not feeling like properly valued.
43:42 Esther Perel? But the thing is interesting that you're highlighting is that the big things I wanna do for you, but they take place in the context of all the little things. If we don't hang, check in, send messages, do pulse checks. Then when you come with the big thing, makes me feel like I'm being taken advantage of. If we do all the little things and then you come with the big thing, then I feel like I'm really important to you and I matter. It's a very interesting reinterpretation.
44:13 Speaker 00 Yeah.
44:13 Esther Perel? It's like if we have all the little funds, then when you come with the big question, then I feel almost honored that you rely on me and that I'm I'm I'm your emergency number.
44:23 Speaker 00 When I feel like I have like agency to say yes or no, which I don't often do, I often feel like I'm not good at saying no.
44:31 Speaker 03 Which is my problem.
44:33 Speaker 00 Like absolutely.
44:35 Speaker 03 It is your responsibility to say no when.
44:37 Speaker 00 Sure, but like, okay, I I have like a very specific example in mind.
44:41 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
44:42 Speaker 00 Um. A year ago, you asked me to drive to Springfield with you.
44:46 Speaker 03 Yes.
44:47 Speaker 00 You called me on the phone. I answered the phone. You said, are you working on Monday? And I was unemployed at the time. So I said, no, I'm not working on Monday. And then you said, would you drive to Springfield with me, like a three and a half hour drive? And I did not want to. I was like, that sounds like a long trip. You're gonna get me get me at six AM. I was like, oh. But we're on the phone. I already told you I'm not working. What what am I gonna say? I don't want to. That feels rude. So I say yes. And we go and like you bring me breakfast and it was great. And then we get back to the city. And you're like, I wanna go to therapy in person. Can I drop you off at the bus?
45:27 Speaker 00 And I was like, you picked me up at my house at six AM for me to do this like giant favor for you and you like. You're not gonna drive me home? And so you like drop me off at the bus, bus never came. So I ended up biking the five miles home. And then I got home and I was like furious. And then you didn't text me like, hey, sorry, that was a slog, like, hope you got home, okay? I get a text from you two days later, that's like, these two people we went to college with broke up. And I'm like, what am I to you? Does that make sense?
45:58 Speaker 03 Yeah, it does.
46:00 Speaker 00 Like, I didn't even just feel like thanked, like, bro, I know that was so annoying. And in my head, I was like, why can't she just do therapy from her house? She lives four blocks from me. And if we had the type of dynamic where I felt like I could just be like, no, drive me home. But I didn't feel that way. You were like, is it cool if I do this? And I'm just like. Yeah, I guess. And again, that's on me, like, I should speak up, but I don't always feel like I can.
46:26 Speaker 03 And
46:28 Speaker 03 to your point, if we had had that rapport. It wouldn't have felt like such a pressured yes. And you might have felt like you had more of a leg to stand on to be like, no bitch, drop me off.
46:41 Speaker 00 Totally. I think, I think in uh different years. I would have been like. Talking about, like, drive me home. But I just was like, I didn't feel comfortable. Around you frankly. And I was feeling used. And I just was like, I kind of need this to end. And like I I biked home on Fullerton five miles, like fucking furious and sweating. I got up at six AM, I was like, are you, I was like, is this a fucking joke?
47:08 Esther Perel? This is the first time you're telling her this?
47:10 Speaker 03 Yes. I think I feel. In part mortified and embarrassed for treating you that way. That's not how I want to behave. And that's not how I want you to feel. And I think there's also a little part of me. That's like. If you feel something, it's your responsibility to say so. Like, I can't be. Always guessing and trying to read between the lines and interpret your silence. As being mad that I didn't text you a follow up, like I.
47:48 Esther Perel? No.
47:49 Speaker 03 Wrong?
47:50 Esther Perel? Yeah. No, wrong, no, wrong, but.
47:55 Esther Perel? I know
47:58 Esther Perel? you're you're keen to think about whose responsibility is it. Uh huh. But you know enough to that if somebody spends their day driving with you, you don't need a school or a degree to tell you, you know, the nice thing to do is to send a mail message afterwards. You don't even have to send a card anymore. It's in in the palm of your hand to just say much appreciated or something that acknowledges. So that's not for her to tell you to do. Yeah.
48:31 Esther Perel? This is the product of distance. Uh huh. This is more about the emotional distance than about accountability and responsibility. Uh huh. I think. Uh huh.
48:46 Esther Perel? So it's not why as much as how. How have things unfolded that I would be in the situation where the things that naturally come to me don't. Anyone who you pick up at six AM, it kind of understood you probably will drop them off. Or you'll check afterwards if they got home okay, given that you dropped them at the bus stop. To then go to say, no, no, this is for you to tell. It's less about the telling, it's more, there's a detachment. Yeah. That allows these thoughts not to be thread together.
49:26 Esther Perel? Yeah. When you have friends, when you start to have a situation where you're reluctant to see your friend because you're you're beginning to think about what's gonna come up this time? Or what's the thing we haven't addressed? Or what's the resentment that's been lingering? Or what what fuck up will I be exposed with this time? Then you start to not wanna see the friend. Uh huh. You look forward to seeing a friend because it's gonna be nice, fun, interesting, deep, mischievous, whatever, but not to belabor, you know, wrongdoings and criticisms and all of this. So I'm watching this because I think if you do that,
50:11 Esther Perel? you may get it all out, but I'm not sure you will wanna spend time together.
50:17 Esther Perel? It's not inviting.
50:20 Esther Perel? So I'm I'm I'm thinking, what's the right dosage here?
50:25 Speaker 03 Well. I think you naming the trip to Springfield is a good example of a grievance that is symptomatic of a larger dynamic. I think a thing that I sometimes feel is wanting you to ask the favor of me and not anyone, like texting in the group chat. Hey, does anyone wanna watch a movie tonight? My boyfriend's busy. I don't want to just fill in the empty space that you have. I want you to text me and say, hey, I haven't seen you. My boyfriend's out tonight.
51:09 Speaker 03 I would love to watch a movie. Do you wanna come over?
51:11 Speaker 00 Right, but I haven't wanted to do that.
51:13 Speaker 03 Yes, but I'm saying that my experience of you being self-centered is that, is is you not asking me to do anything, not asking me about myself. And then it feels like expecting someone to come in and fill a need for you. And I want you to ask me to be burdened. I want you to ask me to drive to Springfield with you.
51:43 Speaker 00 Right, but I don't because then I'm like, I'm always gonna ask for something in in return. Like, I'm gonna have to, you know, do another drive to Springfield.
51:51 Esther Perel? But it's a different request. What she wants is for you to make her feel that she's important to you. It's not a burden piece here. This is more like you seeking her out.
52:07 Speaker 00 It feels very loaded, right? It feels very loaded and so it's not chill. And we love to chill and that's like been so much of our relationship is like relaxing and like unwinding and.
52:20 Speaker 03 Well, I'll add that my experience of us hanging out hasn't felt super loaded. I did not know all of the emotional baggage that was happening for you around the trip to Springfield and how much weight and meaning there was in it. And I understand that that's part of the issue. But it's hard for me to know how sensitive it is.
52:44 Speaker 00 But then why don't you ask?
52:47 Esther Perel? No, it each of you is saying to the other, if you did it differently, things would be easier. I know. You know. But I'm I'm just saying she knows me. Yes, and you know her and you have a ten year friendship and it could just be the next day after she drops you, you just say, listen, yesterday was a real bitch. And I had let out a bike and this and that and that wasn't cool. That's it. Yeah. You have to kind of shorten the distance between action and reaction. That's on your part. But the other piece is when she says, you know, invite me to chill is of the same vein as you're putting it out in the cosmos.
53:29 Esther Perel? You're checking to see if she's offering herself. If she doesn't offer herself, you think you're no longer on her priority list. But in the same way that you requested, she wasn't put on your priority list. It was more like a I'm free tonight, who's available? And the specialness becomes questioned by each of you. This is the crochet of the friendship too. Yeah. It's like little things like this. Di, di, di, di, di, di, and suddenly there's a kind of a cloud. Yeah. So when she says, call me, I wouldn't explain why you don't call her. I would say, I'm glad to know you want that because I want that too.
54:15 Esther Perel? End of conversation. There's it's like the processing, but then there's a limit to the processing. Yeah. Because if you become too much of a processing relationship, it doesn't feel chill. And I think your your suggestion about calling me to go and do things, you need more of that. Ask me to borrow my car. Ask to borrow the dog. I mean, yeah. Both of you though. No, I know. It's like I.
54:44 Speaker 00 Uh so something I said to her was that I felt like we were sort of mismatched in like the expectations of each other and our actual level of of current closeness, right, like. I don't wanna reach out to you to borrow your car because I'm like. That's weird, like if I'm not hanging out with Emily and then I'm like, let me borrow your car, that feels transactional .
55:04 Esther Perel? You need those hangouts.
55:05 Speaker 00 Right.
55:06 Esther Perel? You need those small things that that you enjoy doing together, whatever the things are, it doesn't have to be small, but it you need to do the stuff that gives the cushion.
55:16 Speaker 00 Right. Uh I, the only times I end up seeing you is when we need something from each other .
55:21 Esther Perel? Ever met the four of you?
55:23 Speaker 00 Us and our boyfriends?
55:24 Esther Perel? Mm hmm.
55:25 Speaker 00 Like maybe once.
55:26 Esther Perel? Okay, so that the you need twos, you need fours. Because your group at this point, your group of friends is in a way keeping you together without you being really together.
55:37 Speaker 00 Yeah, that's yeah.
55:38 Esther Perel? So in a way, it's kind of deflecting.
55:41 Speaker 00 Yeah.
55:41 Esther Perel? The corrective is more things to two of you.
55:45 Speaker 00 Yeah.
55:46 Esther Perel? That you have a a huge repertoire of things that you can do together.
55:51 Speaker 00 Yeah.
55:51 Esther Perel? The four of you, for that matter.
55:53 Speaker 00 Yeah.
55:54 Esther Perel? Because if you're gonna continue this at some point, it the if it's not two and if it's not four.
56:00 Speaker 00 Yeah.
56:00 Esther Perel? It won't sustain.
56:01 Speaker 00 Mm hmm. Yeah.
56:03 Esther Perel? Uh and it's okay to have had an incredible friendship in college that didn't sustain. People will tell you stories upon stories of how things just went in different directions and dissolved gradually, but if you want it. Then it's about creating these new configurations.
56:25 Speaker 00 Yeah. I think that something I said to you when I talked about coming on this thing is this like lazy closeness where you sort of stop performing for the other person.
56:41 Speaker 00 Obviously, when you're like attracted to someone, you meet them out, right? And they're like either trying to impress you, or they're like on their best behavior, or they're like telling you all their best stories. And like after a while, they stop doing that because they're comfortable with you. And so we're not always our best selves with each other. And I suggested, I was like, I I want to feel like we are just new friends. Cause I don't know what music you listen to, like, I don't know what shows you're watching, like. I don't know, like really small, like regular things about you.
57:14 Esther Perel? Hmm, it's like you have the decision to make, will we remain childhood friends? It's the friends you meet, but they're frozen in time.
57:24 Esther Perel? And they didn't really evolve with you. Then you have the ones who travel with you. And they are people who are charting the territory with you. They're creating the new experiences.
57:38 Esther Perel? And then you have the circumstantial ones, the ones who you met because you have kids at the same time, or you are in the same school, but it's circumstantial. When that phase ends, so does the relationship. And the ones that you kind of say, they've been in my life twenty, thirty, forty years. That's the ones that you create a combination of all of this. Even if you don't have the same circumstances, you manage to remain updated. And it's beyond what series are you watching, it's kind of who are you now?
58:14 Speaker 00 Completely, and that's what I said to you, I was like, I don't think you know who I am right now.
58:18 Speaker 03 Yeah, well, we're in our boyfriend era.
58:21 Speaker 00 I know.
58:22 Speaker 03 Nay, our live with partner era.
58:24 Speaker 00 I know.
58:25 Speaker 03 And I think I have a lot of grief and resentment that because I'm in a partnership, I'm not single. And because you're in a partnership, you're not single.
58:37 Speaker 03 And so we're not each other's primary anchor partners.
58:44 Esther Perel? It's time for me to suggest something concrete that they can do together. And I'm thinking about my card game, Where Should We Begin?, the game of stories. And how people have told me that they play the game by picking one card every day and telling a story about that card. And how much it has elicited so many untold stories, so many reinterpretations of the other person which they thought they knew, but then discover so many new things about. But also especially how it's energizing, it's playful, it doesn't process the problems. It generates new cells in the relationship.
59:34 Esther Perel? So every day, you flip a card, you send it, and you tell a story. And find a way to bring each other back into your lives today.
59:48 Esther Perel? But not only by talking about the things that you're upset about, but by actually creating an energy that makes you want to connect to each other. You want to stay friends by talking about what makes you upset. It doesn't work this way. It's important to do, but it's not what keeps the friendship alive.
1:00:08 Speaker 03 I also like that as we rebuild and refresh our relationship, that we can invite our partners into this new family system, that there's this new important person in your life who I get to meet and become friends with as well.
1:00:30 Speaker 00 Yeah. Yeah, I would love for you to know him. It's crazy, we live four blocks from each other.
1:00:36 Esther Perel? And what if you took a walk together? You know, a few times a week, half an hour, and you walked the dog?
1:00:45 Esther Perel? I mean, it's that kind of ritual, fun, simple.
1:00:52 Speaker 03 And we've found that in group dynamics, but we've lost that on a one-to-one basis.
1:00:57 Speaker 00 Right, yes. But you're right. I mean, we do have like tons of things. I was just like, we should go antiquing. Like, we love antiquing and we live in the Midwest.
1:01:04 Speaker 03 I started knitting.
1:01:06 Speaker 00 She didn't even tell me.
1:01:08 Speaker 03 I've been knitting, but I'm stuck because I fucked it up and I don't know how to fix it.
1:01:12 Speaker 00 And I'll help you.
1:01:13 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:01:16 Speaker 00 And you haven't seen my new beading. I've been beading.
1:01:20 Speaker 03 Literally.
1:01:24 Esther Perel? All right. That's the energy you're gonna leave with.
1:01:27 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
1:01:27 Esther Perel? We're not gonna add anything. Because you'll have a lot of things to discover. What else don't you know about me that has happened in those last few years?
1:01:40 Speaker 00 I love you, buddy.
1:01:54 Speaker 01 Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel is produced by Magnificent Noise. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with New York Magazine and The Cut. Our production staff includes Eric Newsom, Destri Sibley, Sabrina Farhi, Kristin Muller, and Julianne. Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider. And the executive producers of Where Should We Begin are Esther Perel and Jesse Baker. We'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller, and Jack Saul.
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